Q: Using spider venom against Varroa
Readers: Ray Johson (credited here) emailed me a link to a news story regarding a new compound used to control Varroa. The news referenced a study from scientists at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia who looked at the impact of venom from Tasmanian cave spiders and Japanese funnel web spiders on Varroa. The scientists noted that these compounds killed Varroa without harming bees. His email prompted me to provide a response.
Ray Johnson
New Jersey, July
Answer
I found a University of the Sunshine Coast press release here: https://www.unisc.edu.au/about/unisc-news/news-archive/2026/july/how-spider-venoms-could-stop-deadly-varroa-mites-new-unisc-led-research. The research team published a paper on the topic, and I include the full citation for that here:
Herzig, V., Guo, S., Eagles, D.A. et al. 2026. Spider venom peptides Ht1a and Gg1a are toxic to honeybee parasite Varroa destructor by topical application. npj Drug Discovery, 3(16). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44386-026-00050-9.
This is actually a really cool study. Essentially, the authors screened 50 arthropod venoms against Varroa in topical assays. They said that 78% of the venoms killed 100% of the mites. That is a pretty good start! They took venoms from the cave spider and funnel web spider, looked at their constituent parts and found the venoms had Ht1a and Gg1a in common. These are peptides (short chains of amino acids) present in both venoms. These peptides killed Varroa, but not bees, and they had no effect on various human tissues.
I enjoy research like this because it addresses a significant problem, Varroa, using a novel method, spider venom peptides, and provides a glimpse of hope into our long-running battle with this mite. I caution you, though, that drug/treatment development takes time. There are considerably more misses than hits. This study represents a neat start to this problem, but the authors still have more steps to take before we have a new treatment available for Varroa.
Q: Drones in honey supers
This year, I did better than I ever have at getting to the oft-recommended goal of big strong hives. They have never been bigger or stronger. That said, all of the largest ones have four to six supers on, and all of those have clumps of drone brood in the top two supers. The clumps of sealed drone brood have perhaps forty tightly spaced cells in them.
I rather assume the queen’s aromas do not reach high enough to stop this, but is distal drone brood an expected side effect of “big and strong” hives?
Dan Geer
July
Answer
Great observation! Observations just like this lead to research projects that expand our knowledge on bees. In your colony’s case, you have three primary options. First, the colony’s queen could be running up there and laying eggs in empty cells. It is hard to rule that out entirely unless you use molecular technologies to determine whose offspring the drones are. Working against that hypothesis are the facts that your hives are tall, the drone brood is near the top, it is exclusively drone brood, and queens tend not to cross multiple supers of honey to lay eggs. Thus, the drones are likely not the offspring of the queen, yet we cannot know for sure.
The second, and more likely, option is that workers are laying those eggs for the very reason you suggested. Queen pheromones get diluted in large hives. Worker bees on the extremities of these hives will encounter little, if any, queen pheromone. This can cause some of them to begin to lay eggs. The quickest “tell” for this is you will usually see multiple eggs per cell if workers are the ones laying them. Did you see multiple eggs per cell?
A third option is that you have a second, perhaps virgin, queen running around in the upper reaches of the nest. If she’s unmated, she will lay drone eggs. If mated, she may be laying drone eggs because only drone cells are available to her.
My guess, and it is only a guess, is that you have laying workers in the far reaches of the nest. Check for multiple eggs per cell. If laying workers are the culprits, this phenomenon would likely be a byproduct of having “big and strong” hives, just as you suggested. The good news is that this is not cause for alarm. Rather, it is simply an interesting phenomenon to consider. It would be fun to analyze the offspring molecularly. This would shed light on which bees are responsible for what you are seeing …
